Meet Me At Parky's

Harry Einstein (born 1904) was just a kid from Boston who loved to make people laugh. He got his big break on the February 11, 1934, broadcast of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. Einstein offering Eddie a job with the Boston Symphony would have been funny enough, but when he did it in the character of the English-mangling Greek, Parkyakarkus, he brought down the house.

At the time, no one blinked an eye at the "political correctness" of ethnic humor, and the Parkyakarkus (full name, Takacharrin Parkyakarkus) character became Eddie's regular second banana. Einstein appeared in 11 movies as Parkyakarkus, and the character was popular enough that he was given his own show on NBC.

The premise of Meet Me at Parky's revolves around the restaurant which Parkyakarkus has owned for the last eighteen years. As far as classiness goes, Parky's makes Duffy's Tavern look like Sardi's. When it comes to mastering the English language, Parkyakarkus makes Chester Riley of The Life of Riley sound like Lionel Barrymore!

Regular's at Parky's included singer Betty Jane Rhodes, who was more of an assistant than a waitress, band leader Opie Cates with his hillbilly drawl played second banana, and announcer Bob Williams worked pitches for Old Gold Cigarettes into the action.

The scripts were mostly written by Einstein. The show opens with a couple of short sketches of people getting angry and Williams advising them to "don't get irritated, light up an Old Gold and Meet Me at Parky's". Parkyakarkus has a short monologue which which has the studio audience rolling in the aisles by the time singer Betty shows up to help Parkyakarkus with this week's problem. After the restaurateur begins to get upset and is advised to "don't get irritated", Betty gives us a song. Opie Cates is drawn into the plot and sets the boss up for more laughs with his twisted logic before an instrumental swing tune. By the time the show wraps, we will have heard that there will be more Old Gold's available, now that the War is ending and the military needs less cigarettes.

Meet Me at Parky's ran from June, 1945, until November of 1948. Harry Einstein had invested wisely in real estate, and no longer had to perform to make a living, but he did make a few appearances as Parkyakarkus, especially at the famous Friar's Club Roasts. On November 24, 1958, the guests of honor at the Roast wereDesi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Harry was to be the second to last speaker, and everyone agreed that his toast was the funniest of the night. After his speech, he sat down and slumped over on Milton Berle. Berle called out asking if there was a doctor in the house, and it immediately became obvious that it was no joke.

There were five doctors in the audience, including the chief of surgery at City of Hope. Parky was carried off stage and the doctors attempted to revive him with cardiac massage (operating with a pocket knife) and a defibrillator improvised from an electrical cord. As the doctors fought to save Parkyakarkus's life, Art Linkletter, George Burns, Berle and Tony Martin tried to distract the crowd. When Martin was told to sing, his unfortunate selection was " There's No Tomorrow".

A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street honors the contributions to Radio made by Parkyakarkus. It is the character, not Harry Einstein's name which appears on the Star.